Holy Paladin Confusion

Maybe you can help me sort out few things in my head. I read too much and over think too much about what I should be doing. I was looking at the overrall logs for Dragon Soul and 98% healing are Holy Paladins and their Holy Radiance ... I am not even sure how to use this anymore.

I read that it's great for AoE healing and absorbs but then we'll have to incorporate Mastery for "better" absorbs. Can this even be a good option to do? I know Mastery is not the greatest thing nor the 4 set bonus being lowered to 5% from 20% Another thing I worry about this is that usually we are healing tanks and focusing on tanks, yet HR doesn't transfer Beacon.

Also, I changed the rotation to where I do single target healing and when we are hurting for AoE I do LoD because it does transfer the Beacon. I even changed my tree a bit to get more charges of Holy Power to help in case of high damage I could use LoD. Reason why I boosted my haste so high up. At the moment I have 2386 (I think) and I still don't have the BiS neck, shoulders, hands, 1 ring, wrist, 2 trinkets ... which ALL of the things I need have full haste and spirit. So would it be too much haste? Can too much haste hurt? Crit is nice but is it worth having it? Or would we have to reforge to Mastery and use HR more?

I keep asking myself questions and my brain keeps giving me the run around. I keep reading things and EVERYONE has different opinions. Every forum I go is something different and not sure why people keep going for the 4 set bonus, are they really using HR that much that Mastery would "help"? I can see why 4 set plus Mastery would work in a 10 man scenario because of HR but 25 man we have 6 healers healing, and it's not about topping meters because with a shaman and holy priest ... we are soo behind at times.

Mastery builds have increased in popularity as of late. Opinions will abound on this, however, most people agree that Haste builds are still better. As has always been the case, your skill level and situation will have a greater effect on your performance than your build. This means that you will sometimes find good players performing well with sub-optimal builds.

HR is OP. Like, ridiculously OP. This means that, even though we haven't lost our strong single target healing, our role has shifted to abusing this imbalanced spell. Beacon is still important as you will be casting lots and lots of LoDs; however, Tank healing is not really our job anymore. In my guild, in fact, it's not really anyone's job. Previous tiers in this expansion have had random spikey Tank damage that required dedicated Healers. This tier, Tank damage is pretty much confined to predetermined, expected periods of heavy focused attacks (or high stacks of Debuff X) that require all Heals to switch to the Tank. Outside of these periods, Tanks don't really take that much more damage than the rest of the raid. Incidental healing should be more than enough to keep up your Tank for the majority of a fight. Between Beacon, CH and rolling HoTs from your Druid, everything should be peachy. The rest of the raid, on the other hand, is generally taking copious amounts of damage while all standing stacked together.

Hence the HR. It is a uniquely unchallenging and surpassingly boring experience that harkens back to the HL glory days of the end of Wrath. HR -> HR -> HR -> LoD and you’re set for 80% of the tier.

My biggest piece of advice to you is to forget the role you used to have. Embrace the HR. Especially given your 25-man setting where HR is even MORE broken. Healing is not about meters, but Pallies should be topping them. This tier is all about raid damage and HR is the most overpowered AoE healing spell ever put in the game.

Mastery builds have increased in popularity as of late. Opinions will abound on this, however, most people agree that Haste builds are still better. As has always been the case, your skill level and situation will have a greater effect on your performance than your build. This means that you will sometimes find good players performing well with sub-optimal builds.

HR is OP. Like, ridiculously OP. This means that, even though we haven't lost our strong single target healing, our role has shifted to abusing this imbalanced spell. Beacon is still important as you will be casting lots and lots of LoDs; however, Tank healing is not really our job anymore. In my guild, in fact, it's pretty much no one's job. Previous tiers in this expansion have had random spikey Tank damage that required dedicated Healers. This tier, Tank damage is pretty much null minus predetermined, expected periods of heavy focused attacks (or high stacks of Debuff X)that require all Heals to switch to the Tank. Outside of these periods, Tanks don't really take that much more damage than the rest of the raid. Incidental healing should be more than enough to keep up your Tank for the majority of a fight. Between Beacon, CH and rolling HoTs from your Druid, everything should be peachy. The rest of the raid on the other hand, is taking copious amounts of damage while all standing stacked together.

Hence the HR. It is a uniquely unchallenging and surpassingly boring experience that harkens back to the HL glory days of the end of Wrath. HR -> HR -> HR -> LoD and you’re set for 80% of the tier.

My biggest piece of advice to you is to forget the role you used to have. Embrace the HR. Especially given your 25man setting where HR is even MORE broken. Healing is not about meters, but Pallies should be topping them. This tier is all about raid damage and HR is the most overpowered AoE healing spell ever put in the game.

Thank you FireCrest, this has been the best answer I have gotten so far from anyone. I know what I should be doing but then at the same time I am afraid of my tank dying. Thank you for taking the time to go over everything.

At this moment my haste is where I want it to be and maybe I will boost it up a bit more. I will freelance HR a bit more and see where I get with it.

The 4 pc set bonus will be nerfed, along with the mana cost, in the next patch. In the mean time, exploiting it in its glory is a rush. I would concentrate on experimenting with all of your spells, and learn which of them is the most useful in certain situations. Don't ignore a spell because it is changed, or because it is "in vogue" or currently "out". This is YOUR character, these are YOUR tools, you need to own them. This is what it means to be a paladin. We'll be less OP in the next patch, and we will be changed over and again any time we get the slightest bit comfortable, but we are still the most solid and flexible and reactive healers in the game. So practice your spells until you feel comfortable using them in every iteration the game throws at you. Don't tunnel vision a "rotation" or do what "everybody else does.". Your raid group is not identical to the next guy's.

On the Haste/Mastery/Crit debate - all of the stats are good for Holy Paladins. Unlike some specs, Blizzard actually did balance our secondary stats pretty well. If you're having a problem where you feel you aren't doing enough healing, I wouldn't look at your stats first but your choice of abilities like you and Firecrest suggested.

Normally in 25 man raids you will spam holy radiance. Granted if one person is at 25% and the rest of the raid is at 100. You want to do a single target heal. Otherwise, your job as a holy paladin is basically to spam raid heals for 25 man. Still beacon the tank, and whenever you do heal a low individual it will slightly help the tank healing. If 3 or more people in the raid are injured I am spamming holy radiance. Sometimes I will even forget LoD and just save it for a quick save on the tank, normally you can still top meters without even LoDing. Basically a HP dump. I haven't actually cast holy light in a very long time, nor divine light. (maybe in 5 mans) Holy radiance is still pretty mana efficient, so casting a flash of light when someone gets low quickly won't hurt, especially with divine plea being just about as OP. I finish raids with 80% + mana still.

The 4 pc set bonus will be nerfed, along with the mana cost, in the next patch. In the mean time, exploiting it in its glory is a rush.

Four Piece was nerfed a long time ago. It only took them about a week and a half after it went live to figure out how OP it was. Very few people would have been able to have actually used it. You would have had to of been very lucky with drops or exploiting the LFR. What you're thinking of is the tool-tip change, which won't make it to live until the next minor patch.

They do this often. Changing the mechanics of some spell or effect is something they can do in a hot-fix. But changing the actual tool-tip text requires a patch.

I would also disagree with your press to avoid "what everyone else does". Everyone else does it that way for a reason - usually because it works. In this case, the OP has seen that everyone is abusing HR, but is reluctant to do so. They need to let go of that reluctance and get on the HR bandwagon.

Blind obedience can get you in trouble. You should always understand WHY you're doing something. But bucking the trend just to be a special snowflake rarely proves to be effective.

Edit:
Despite the nerf to the 4p Bonus, it is still worth getting. HR should be making up 50-80 percent of your healing. And a 5% increase to that is better than any bonus you'll get from a piece or two of more properly itemized gear. Especially since reforging is an option and, as Simca pointed out, the true gap in performance between our optional stats is quite small.

25mans will typically have a Haste Paladin and a Mastery Paladin, both do great numbers no matter what happens, I would say do some research, and see what you think on Elitist jerks a bit. I'm a haste paladin personally but I see mastery combined with some decent crit (use the meta) doing awesome things. 25mans Holy Radiance is just loopy in how much it heals, 10mans you have to wait for the opportune moments but there are plenty of times to squeeze what you can out of it. There are few times where it falls down weak and hell in Ultraxion hc (It's over NINE THOOUSSAAND), just grab the blue gem and spam HR til your finger goes red (obviously top off the tank with a few Divine Lights while Aura mastery/preventive CD's are doing their thing but otherwise just nail that button.

It's a good skill, in a 10man environment it requires some thought, 25man, do your thing, Tank heal if appropriate, Holy Radiance/Light of Dawn all other times. If you can melee the boss to generate holy power with shock and CS and just churn out Light of Dawns as fast as possible. I have a macro I can just spam on those occasions, mostly for madness where I can put it to best use.
For gearing it, just look at any successful 25man raiding groups paladins you're bound to find out how they go about it depending on what you feel like doing.

I agree with Firecrest and Simca. I also think they still haven't got HR right yet. I am almost sure that it will change yet again.

Though I would like to see an overhaul of this spell, I wouldn't hold my breath. Everything changes in 5.0 and I'm sure that balance until then is a low priority. Expect the PTR nerf to make it to live and be prepared to see the spell potentially nerfed again sometime down the line, but not much more than that.